Albert Spaulding Cook
<p><i>he Dark Voyage and the Golden Mean</i>, which was to launch his career. He at this time also experienced a religious awakening which led to his conversion from liberal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism" title="Agnosticism">agnosticism</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican" class="mw-redirect" title="Anglican">Anglican</a> Christianity. He returned to Harvard to complete his master's degree, chiefly under the mentorship of the renowned classicist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Havelock" class="mw-redirect" title="Eric Havelock">Eric Havelock</a>, and continued as a Harvard Junior Fellow, envisioning an eventual career outside academe as a lone wolf writer of poetry, drama and fiction. A prominent member of a group of young Harvard writers that included L.E. Sissman, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Wexler" title="Norman Wexler">Norman Wexler</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wilbur" title="Richard Wilbur">Richard Wilbur</a>, he founded the little magazine <i>Halcyon</i> (1947-1948), publishing work by himself and his friends alongside contributions from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens" title="Wallace Stevens">Wallace Stevens</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Merrill" title="James Merrill">James Merrill</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg" title="Allen Ginsberg">Allen Ginsberg</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.e._cummings" class="mw-redirect" title="E.e. cummings">e.e. cummings</a>. He also began working with Boston's Tributary Theater, which staged his translation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles" title="Sophocles">Sophocles</a>' <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_Rex" title="Oedipus Rex">Oedipus Rex</a></i>. In a revised form, this version of the play was several times republished in later years. Elected to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Society_of_Fellows" title="Harvard Society of Fellows">Harvard Society of Fellows</a>, Cook continued to work on a variety of projects, and began publishing work in <i>The Partisan Review</i>. He married Carol S. Rubin on June 19, 1948 and in the following spring took up residence on a Junior Fellow Study Grant in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Germain-des-Pr%C3%A9s" title="Saint-Germain-des-Prés">Saint-Germain</a> neighborhood of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris">Paris</a>.</p>
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His presence was especially strong during the two sensational Buffalo Festivals of the Arts in 1965 and 1967, transpiring during a politically and ideologically explosive decade. He also instituted a vigorous program of illustrious visitorships, usually during the summer sessions, which in the fifteen years of his tenure featured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman" title="John Berryman">John Berryman</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges" title="Jorge Luis Borges">Jorge Luis Borges</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Bunting" title="Basil Bunting">Basil Bunting</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess" title="Anthony Burgess">Anthony Burgess</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Burke" title="Kenneth Burke">Kenneth Burke</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky" title="Noam Chomsky">Noam Chomsky</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen" title="Leonard Cohen">Leonard Cohen</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Duncan%28poet%29" title="Robert Duncan (poet)">Robert Duncan</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ellman" class="mw-redirect" title="Richard Ellman">Richard Ellman</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Empson" title="William Empson">William Empson</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Foucault" title="Henri Foucault">Henri Foucault</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Graves" title="Robert Graves">Robert Graves</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkes%28novelist%29" title="John Hawkes (novelist)">John Hawkes</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Jakobson" title="Roman Jakobson">Roman Jakobson</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell" title="Randall Jarrell">Randall Jarrell</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Kenner" title="Hugh Kenner">Hugh Kenner</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Kermode" title="Frank Kermode">Frank Kermode</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing" title="Doris Lessing">Doris Lessing</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Macdonald" title="Dwight Macdonald">Dwight Macdonald</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer" title="Norman Mailer">Norman Mailer</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Nemerov" title="Howard Nemerov">Howard Nemerov</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_O%E2%80%99Hara" class="mw-redirect" title="Frank O’Hara">Frank O’Hara</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crowe_Ransom" title="John Crowe Ransom">John Crowe Ransom</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Rich" title="Adrienne Rich">Adrienne Rich</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Simpson" title="Louis Simpson">Louis Simpson</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov" title="Tzvetan Todorov">Tzvetan Todorov</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike" title="John Updike">John Updike</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wilbur" title="Richard Wilbur">Richard Wilbur</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevtushenko" title="Yevtushenko">Evgeny Yevtushenko</a> and many others.</p>